Brothers in Arms
by penguino3782
Summary: After the heart wrenching 3.09 episode some big brother Lip is definitely needed.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Shameless.**

**A/N: So after watching 3.09 I think I actually felt my heart break. The scene where Ian is in his bed bruised and bloodied, crying when the rest of his family is downstairs laughing just pulled at my heartstrings. Take that and the fact that there are not nearly enough Lip/Ian brother fics in this fandom and voila. I hope you guys enjoy this little one shot.**

**Brothers in Arms**

Everyone was in a good mood. All was laughing, smiling, and enjoying the loot that came with Frank's new found homosexuality.

"If I knew sticking up for the fags and dykes would have given me shit like this I would have started a PFLAG chapter at the Alibi years ago," Kev says laughing.

To their credit none of his siblings laugh wholeheartedly at Kev's joke. Even though now all the Gallagher siblings know about Ian's sexuality, no thanks to Jimmy's fucking father, they don't talk about it out in the open. Their tight knit family is accepting of it, but the comment that Kev just made goes to show how the rest of their neighborhood isn't.

Speaking of his brother, Lip asks. "Have you guys seen Ian?" Lip just got in right before Fiona and wasted no time in digging into the gift baskets. He wants to tell his brother the good news of his meeting with the guy from MIT. That just like him, Lip has the urge to reach for something better and get the hell out of this shitty neighborhood.

"He was in the room when I got home," Carl says.

"He okay?" Fiona asks Carl, but then turns to look at Lip. If anyone knows how Ian is, it's Lip.

Lip shakes his head. He has no clue what's going on with his brother. Ian's been quiet all day, acting liked a kicked puppy or some shit. Granted, he's probably partly to blame for not knowing what's going on with his younger brother because he's been so wrapped up in his own shit, getting into it with Mandy over Karen and her applying to colleges for him.

"Don't know, door's shut," Carl adds with a mouth full of food.

Fiona goes to stand up, but Lip stops her. "I got it, you sit."

Fiona gives him a small smile and tosses some kind of cheese at Lip. "Here, bring this to him. It smells like ass, but it tastes good. "

Lip catches it easily and grabs two beers from the floor before he makes his way up the stairs two at a time. He walks into his old bedroom that it surrounded in darkness, except for the stream of street light that is peaking in. Ian says nothing as Lip enters the room, his back facing his brother. Even though Lip gently sits down on the bed, Ian still lets out a small whimper.

Lip places the beers down on the floor beside the bed, nervously and calls out quietly. "Hey, man."

Ian remains silent and Lip inhales deeply. Ian being quiet like this is never a good thing. He knows the easiest thing to do is to leave his brother alone and let him deal with whatever he's dealing with. But, he can't. The two of them have been through so much shit together, especially as of late. So, he needs to make sure that his brother is okay.

"Look at me, Ian." Lip orders. But, Ian doesn't move. Knowing that he's definitely treading on dangerous ground right now, but he really doesn't care at the moment. Probably in part due to the high he's still feeling from meeting up with that MIT dude, he puts his hand on Ian's shoulder and rolls his brother towards him.

Lip lets out a curse when he sees his brother's bloodied, and bruised face. "Fuck, Ian! What the fuck happened? Who did this to you?"

Ian doesn't say anything and tries to roll away from his older brother. "Was it the skinheads again? Did they come into the store? I thought that wouldn't try that shit with Mickey working there."

At the last part, Ian lets out a small sob. And Lip stops there. No fucking way. He leans in closer and sees what he missed when he first got a glance at his brother. Running down his pale face, mixing with the blood are tears. And in that instant everything clicks. Ian not sneaking in late at night. Ian asking Mandy where her brother was. Mandy rambling on about Mickey fucking up his own life and she's not gonna let Lip do the same. Ian's moping around the whole day. If he wasn't so hung up on what was going on with his own life he would have noticed that something was definitely going on with his brother. And the tears and blood on his face tells him that whatever has been going on with his brother catapulted into another level.

"Mickey did this," Lip states, rather than questions. Ian is one of the toughest people he knows physically. He has no problem backing Lip up when it was needed in a fist fight against people who were twice their size. He has gone tit for tat against some of the worst people out there because of something Frank did, without blinking an eye.

But when it comes to his heart it's something completely different. Ian's so much more vulnerable and that is how Lip knows it was Mickey who did this. Because he might have been just a piece of ass to Mickey, but his brother feels something much more than that for the ex-convict.

In this moment Lip truly hates Mickey Milkovich. He can't even remember the last time he actually saw Ian cry. Not when he was eight and Frank came home and broke Ian's nose because Monica left him on the side of the road. Not when Monica didn't send a birthday card when she ran out just three weeks before Ian's birthday.

And to see his usually stoic brother fall into pieces sends rage throughout Lip's body. Milkovich or no Milkovich no can get away with hurting his brother.

"Here take this," Lip says as he hands him a beer. The redhead accepts the beer as he sits up, messily wiping away his tears and blood with his sleeve.

"We're done now," Ian whispers brokenly, taking a large sip of beer.

The smartass in Lip wants to say _yeah right, you though that before. _But Ian's sad, injured face tells him that this time it may be in fact true. Not really knowing what to do, he gently squeezes his brother's shoulder, sipping his beer. "Drink up, Ian."

**XXXXX**

Something like manic energy curses throughout Lip's body as he walks up the familiar stairs. Nah, it's probably the buzz that he got from drinking the six beers while silently, sitting alongside his heartbroken brother. After watching Ian fall into an exhausted, drunken sleep Lip is on a mission. He knocks loudly on the door that is in front of him. When no one answers he knocks again, this time louder. The door then flies open and a gruff voice calls out "What the fuck do you want? Mandy's not here, Gallagher.'

Not wasting any time, Lip dives in head first. "I'm not here to see your sister, Mickey."

Mickey must have figured out what Lip was alluding to because he slams the door and joins the other boy on the porch, "Listen, it's done. There's nothing you can do to change that."

Lip gives him a sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, Ian's face tells me that."

"Then why are you here?" Mickey asks.

"To make sure that this time it's for real. You two are really done. Because you have a habit of making my brother feel like shit, ending whatever you two call it, and then after awhile you want to pick things up like nothing happened. That was the past. It's not going to happen this time."

"Oh yeah, that's right?" Mickey says with a smirk, trying to egg Lip on. "What are you gonna do about it?"

Lip is not playing Mickey's game, He came here with one thing in mind, and he's not gonna stray from it.

"Damn fucking right you're done. So go marry that whore you knocked up. Or don't. I really don't give a shit what you do, just leave Ian the fuck alone."

Mickey stares at Lip with steel blue eyes. But, Lip isn't scared and he continues. "You're gonna let him get over you. You're gonna stay the fuck out of his life. Without you around he stands more of a chance in getting into West Point or finding some other way to get the hell out of this shithole. And when he does get out of here he's gonna find himself a boyfriend that is his only fucking age that is gonna treat him the way he should be treated. Your sister and I will then scare the shit out of said boyfriend during a 'meet the boyfriend dinner' far away from here because even though you can be taken out of the Southside, the Southside can't be taken out of you."

Lip takes a deep breath. So far Mickey hasn't hit him, so Lip decides to go on. "You fucking broke him, let him heal."

And for a second Lip can see a flicker of hurt in the ex-con's eyes. Good. He knows that it's probably so miniscule, but if Mickey can feel just a flicker of what Ian is, then good.

'Fuck you, Gallagher." Mickey hisses into the darkness.

Lip smiles. "Same to you. I don't care who does. Man, female. Gay, straight. Just as long as it's not my brother."

With that said Lip turns to leave the ex-con standing alone on the porch. It wasn't much, but he feels better. Because if Mickey does leave Ian alone then he stands a chance of getting the hell out of here. And that's all that matters. They're brothers and they look out for each other. Because way before Fiona dropped out of school, before Monica left the first time, before Ian started screwing Kash, before Lip found Ian's stash of gay porn, before Steve/Jimmy came into their lives, before Lip hooked up with Karen, before Ian started fucking Mickey, before Mickey went to Juvie the first time, before Karen got pregnant, before Lip hooked up with Mandy, before Mickey went back to juvie, before Monica came back and tried to kill herself, before Ian unknowingly hooked up with Jimmy's dad, before DFS took them away, and before Mickey broke his kid brother's heart, they were brothers.

They always were and they always will be. Just as Lip was there for all the crap in the past, he's gonna be there for the good stuff in the future. A smile comes to Lip's face as he jogs back home. He really doesn't know what he's gonna do to help Ian through this, but he knows one thing. There's no way in hell he's gonna let Mickey fucking Milkovich fuck with his brother again.

**I know it's not a happy Ian/Mickey ending, but I frankly don't know how the writers if/are going to fix this. It just really bothered me that everyone was having a grand old time downstairs while poor Ian was upstairs literally crying his eyes out. I thought that Lip would have at least noticed something was up. This was my little fix to the situation.**


End file.
